Pages

Thursday, 19 December 2013

I'm delighted to welcome you back, once more, to Modern Tempted Day, here on CLAficionado! And am rather excited to inform you that the 18th of every month, here on in, will be designated as such.

This month's point of discussion is the history of this illustrious imprint. Modern Tempted (or Harlequin KISS as it's called across the pond), is the revamp of RIVA, which was my favourite Mills & Boon imprint for about two years. But to truly understand it's origins, we have to delve even further back in time... to Mills & Boon Temptation.

The very first Halequin/Mills & Boon Temptation book

Launched in February 1985, with LaVyrle Spencer's Spring Fancy, Mills & Boon Temptation heralded the mainstream rise of sensual romance for Mills & Boon. Starting sensual and ending with downright saucy books in the 90s, the covers of Temptation started to move away from handdrawn images, towards more realistic depictions of characters before many of the other imprints.

In 2000 it was replaced by Sensual Romance, which in turn split, becoming Blaze in 2005.

This overhaul was echoed five years later when Mills & Boon Romance merged with Special Editions (which they'd bought from outside) to form the current Cherish line. Those books in Romance that were highly sensual moved - along with the sexy Modern Heat books - into RIVA.

Since then, RIVA's become Modern Tempted, and the sexy, sassy books that I've been raving about for the last couple of months have become staples for any Mills & Boon fans.

In some ways for me, as someone who discovered Mills & Boon first through Temptation, it seems only right that everything's come full circle, and I am delighted to be hosting the Modern Tempted Day each month. And I urge you to go try some for yourself.

So, as per usual, I present my reviews of this month's delightful offerings:

Bridesmaid Olivia Matthews has arrived at her best friend’s glamorous
society wedding – and stepped into her worst nightmare! From her cleavage to
her attitude, nothing about Livvie is welcome – and before she knows it she’s
won the disapproval of everyone there.

The only silver lining is best man Edward Winchester. He might be a bit
uptight, but he’s also gorgeous and kisses like an X-rated dream... So Livvie
decides there’s only one way to redeem this wedding from hell: persuade control
freak Edward to cut loose and have his wicked way with her. If only he’d stop
being so chivalrous...!

Jennifer Rae’s debut Mills & Boon novel is charming from the very
first paragraph. Opening with: “It wasn’t just cold. It was bones-aching, tits-freezing cold.” Her
vivacious voice and ability to capture places and people caught me too.

Olivia is not perfect. She gets unbelievably
drunk at her best friend’s wedding weekend, flirts with all the wrong guys
(including some creepy rahs who could have walked straight off the Made in Chelsea set) and wears
dangerously high stiletto heels in the depth of a British winter.

But I like that. I have a fairly
bad habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, and genuinely can’t help
replaying those cringeworthy moments again and again and again – I still have
nightmares about things that happened at primary school.

So Olivia is the kind of character who I can identify with. She reinvents herself, forces herself out of
her comfort zone and goes for everything with all she’s got. And I love her for it.

Edward’s just the right side of uptight. He’s sweet and kind, and is fighting what he
sees as an inappropriate attraction so hard that when it finally culminates in
a kiss, it’s fairly mindblowing. Rae
captures the “we don’t talk about that” aspect of the British family so
well. And to those who argue that it’s a
cliche – bull. It’s totally true. Unbelievably so.

And aside from all this well-developed and in-depth characterisation,
she delivers on a romance that makes your toes curl with the lushness of it all.

Dancing lessons...? Hot-shot architect Ryder Fitzgerald can’t think of
anything worse! But he spots a silver lining in the form of smoking-hot Nadia
Kent, who’ll be teaching him his steps for his sister’s wedding – maybe this
won’t be so torturous after all...

Nadia is staying well clear of Ryder – never mind how jaw-droppingly
hot he is. She made the mistake of letting a guy get in the way of her ambition
once before, and she’s not about to do it again. No matter how well he swivels
his hips!

But, as electricity crackles in the studio, restricting their chemistry
to the dance floor becomes a challenge... The only question is, who’s going to
make the first move?

It’s been ten years since Ally Blake published her very first book, and
that’s ten years packed with fun, sassy and delightful romances. The
Dance Off is her 25th book for Mills & Boon, and I was totally
psyched to see what she came up with.

Now, I’ve always been a little bit in love with dancing – especially when
there’s handsome rugby players involved (oh Ben Cohen
– next week’s Strictly Come Dancing final
won’t be the same without you!!) – so having her heroine as a dance instructor
was always going to win me over. And
then there was Ryder. Suited and so hot he
could start a fire with his intense gaze, he seemed to be the perfect fit for
free-spirited Nadia.

I loved the fact that Nadia’s career is something that is in
development. She’s working towards
overcoming her previous fears as well as perfecting Cirque du Soleil-style
acrobatics. This incredibly sensual
woman makes the perfect foil for Ryder, though even she doesn’t expect the way
he reacts to her.

There’s a wonderfully intimate scene where she performs a routine for
him that becomes a mix of emotion and lust until he joins her in the ribbons
and they join together in every sense of the word.

Ally Blake’s the queen of creating characters who spark against each
other in ways that mean that they come to accept their pasts for what they are
(ie. the past) and move on together. The Dance Off is no different. Both Nadia and Pyder have issues that can’t
be ignored and it’s only in opening up to each other that they find the courage
to face their problems.

So yes, loving everything about these characters and their story, and
there’s a tiny part of me that wants to see how Ryder’s sister and her fiancé
got together...

Ella Sanborn loves a good party. Back in her socialite days she used to
be the life and soul of them! Now, however, Ella’s on the other side of the
invitation – organising parties rather than attending them. But Ella’s no
quitter. She’ll become New York’s premier events planner even if it kills her!
Which working with strait-laced new client Chase Trumbull might well do...

Chase has been too busy saving his family’s business to find much to
laugh about recently. He might have agreed to throw a themed party, but that
doesn’t mean he’s off duty just yet! Until he meets Ella. Something about her
tempts him to loosen his tie, take off his suit jacket and finally have some
fun...

It’s always interesting when you meet a side-character who tugs at your
heart strings just as much as the main characters. Chase’s grandfather has a form of dementia
which means that as Ella and Chase’s relationship develops we see his memory
disintegrating. Heart-breaking. Braun creates a thought-provoking portrayal
of the effects of dementia on families as well as on the patients themselves.

At the same time, the chemistry between the two main characters builds
and builds, culminating in sex on a sideboard and any number of sizzling
scenes.

I think what really touched me about this was Chase’s protective
streak. Before he even realises that he’s
falling for Ella, he comes to her defense when faced with the
stepmother-from-hell and almost has a coronary over the fact that the entrance
to her building seems to permanently be prompted open with a brick.

Chase’s protectiveness stems more from his burgeoning feelings, and is more
about caring for Ella than trying to control what she does. The one time he oversteps the line – hiring someone
to make sure that she doesn’t mess up planning his grandfather’s party – she puts
him firmly in his place.

I love my women sassy, strong and overcoming the past, and Ella’s the
epitome of this. A fantastically strong
woman who doesn’t need a man to define herself, it just so happens that Chase
is so lovely she can’t help herself.

Journalist Allegra Fielding has a problem. She’s pitched a story to her
boss – how to transform a not-so-perfect man into Prince Charming – and now she
has to deliver! But where is she going to find a man willing to take part in a
makeover? Time to blackmail her flatmate, Max...

But Allegra’s cunning plan backfires spectacularly when Max refuses to
be ‘perfected’! He’s a guy who knows what he likes, and he’s going to enjoy
proving to Allegra that there’s nothing hotter than a man who’s a little rough
around the edges...

I love this idea of a not-so-perfect hero. Of course we know, even if it does take
Allegra forever to realise it, that Max is utterly perfect for her. The concept of creating the perfect man
though, does raise some interesting issues.

In some ways this works as an inverted My Fair Lady, with Allegra as a
zany Professor Higgins, just as densely attempting to reinvent someone who is
perfect just as they are. We forget
sometimes that there is pressure on men to be the idealised version of manhood
that’s touted in magazines and in the media, just as there is for women.

We’re told that the perfect man is sensitive, can read our minds, cook
and dance. The perfect man would forgo
watching football in order to curl up on the sofa with us and Patrick Swayze in
Dirty Dancing.

Sometimes, we’re so caught up in what seems perfect or ideal, that we
don’t see what is in front of us.

And this is what Hart addresses.
She has her hero be male, but completely opposite (and occasionally even
adverse to) Allegra’s idea of the perfect man.
She makes us challenge the way we look at our partners and question why
we can sometimes unintentionally push people to be someone they’re not.

By the end of the novel, Allegra and Max accept each other for who they
really are, as opposed to who they want each other to be, and that seems very
special.

In a society which is continually pushing us to be the perfect,
idealised, lobotomised version of ourselves that in reality bears little
resemblances to who we really are, this is a breath of fresh air. Brilliant.

Plus there’s a scene in a taxi that almost made me combust on the Tube…
;)

This month's Mills & Boon Boy, Tony is more than capable of holding his own, especially when reading ModernTempted books!

Search This Blog

Popular Posts

Follow by Email

About Me

Ali Williams grew up in Croydon and spent her teenage years in a convent
girls' school. She then fled to university where she discovered
champagne cocktails, a capella singing and erotica.

These days she blogs
about perceptions of romance, chick lit and women in society and spends
an extraordinary amount of time coercing male friends to pose with her
favourite Mills & Boon books to the bemusement of the Twittersphere.